The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Jericho
- Chapter 21 -
The circumstances of the family of Hiponias, the father of the 3 thieves.
Nojed said: "O wise Friend, this seems very close to the truth, and it also will be so, because it is written that God's decrees are untraceable and His guidance and ways inscrutable. But why were our mother, who always acted and lived strictly according to the laws of the temple, and also our 4 most innocent sisters, so completely deserted by Jehovah? If the teaching of the temple is a completely destroyed and trampled down teaching, how could our mother and our poor innocent sisters be blamed for that? As we have heard as an established fact, our mother died soon after her entrance in that beautiful home of God - probably from poisoning - and our sisters were raped at once, and who knows what else happened to them. Could the good and very wise God of the Jews also be pleased about that, since He permitted it? If You can also reassure us about that, we also want to stay firmly believing Jews."
2
I said: "Oh, nothing is easier than that - then listen: your father, whose name is Hiponias, as well as the eldest of you, was a Jew who was converted to Judaism after the more pure teaching of the Samaritans. He did not like the empty ceremonies and all kinds of other deceptions of the temple. But because of that, he always had difficulties with his wife, who just like your sisters who became the same as she, was a real temple fool. So your honest father died of sorrow, and on his deathbed he still prayed God to let his wife and his daughters see, even during this earthly life, that they were not walking His ways but on the ways of the prince of the lie and the power of death. And God answered the prayer of your father who always was entirely faithfully devoted to Him in the truth.
3
And what means could be more suitable and better for those 5 women, who expected their salvation entirely from the temple, than to let them taste the superior salvation of the temple? It is true that the earthly life of your mother, who was the greatest temple fool, has ended in the temple, but thereby she has entirely returned to the true faith of her husband whom she had given so much sorrow, and she has learned to despise the doings of the temple with all her heart. And your sisters soon came to know more closely - out of their own experience and with a lot of tears - about the angels of God who were serving them, and they quickly came to abhor them greatly. As a result of a higher decree and permission of God, they are now completely healthy and filled with the right kind of faith and trust in the only true God of the Jews in Essaea, in the house of the innkeeper of the large inn at the square, where at some opportunity you can meet and speak with them. But today it is barely the 4th day that they were brought there by 2 arch-Pharisees together with several others for healing. All further details you will be able to hear in due time from their own mouth.
4
And can you now still claim that the God of the Jews is an invented, empty fable, now that you know all this?"
5
Nojed said: "Friend, You are a prophet, we believe You, and we believe now also again in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For if You would not be a prophet, filled with the Spirit of Jehovah, then You could not know so precisely our names and still less our most secret life's circumstances. Therefore, all honor again to the only true God of the Jews, who, by His care, has made us in a wonderful way true human beings. In which country did You become a prophet? Are You also a Samaritan?